Should a Factory Robot Treat Every Touch as a Command?

Gene.01 has tactile skin across its body that can sense touch, proximity, force and temperature. Generative Bionics says that force sensing can also let workers teach a task by physically guiding the robot. That makes contact an input, not just a collision. On a shipyard floor, though, the same shove could mean stop, move over, I’m slipping, or you bumped me. The robot should not guess intent from pressure alone. I’d want an unexpected touch to trigger a brief safe hold and show where contact happened. Teaching should require an explicit mode before the robot learns or continues. The emergency stop should stay separate and obvious. A robot that can feel a hand is fascinating. The trust test is knowing when not to interpret it. Should workers be able to guide these robots by touch, or should touch only slow or stop them?